Paula believed – and knew that many others shared her theory – that the Killers used it as a method of communication. A tiny black hole should have evaporated in a puff of Hawking Radiation, but the Killers could certainly have used their gravity manipulation technology to keep one alive and use it as a communications system. A larger black hole could be used as a power source – they knew now that that was how the Killers powered their starships – and a supermassive one could be used to create gravity beams that could be felt all over the galaxy. The Killers hadn’t attempted to develop quantum entanglement communications technology because they hadn’t needed any such thing. They already possessed instantaneous communication and transport technology.
“MassMind, come online,” she ordered. If something went wrong, the MassMind might be required to assist her in dealing with it, or at the very least sucking out all their personalities before the disaster overwhelmed them. Its reactions were inhumanly fast and competent. “Link into the system and stand by.”
“Standing by,” the MassMind confirmed. It housed the personalities and memories of humans who had been involved in such research since it had been created. Its presence should provide an extra degree of security. “We are ready to move on your command.”
Paula nodded. “Switch power to gravity manipulators,” she ordered, slowly. “Target the gravity beams on the black hole and engage.”
The power rapidly built up as the gravity beams started to flow out of the orbiting platforms and down towards the black hole. This, Paula knew, was what might convince the Killers to forget the bloody nose they’d received the last time they’d come to the Shiva System and return to destroy her. Gravity beams had been their exclusive technology. Now, Paula was manipulating the black hole in front of her, attempting to gain control over it and use it as a power source. It’s gravity field, immensely strong – even though Shiva was puny, compared to some black holes the human race had observed – seemed to dance and twist as the gravity beams intersected with it, reaching down towards the singularity at the core of the black hole.
She was barely aware of time passing as the gravity beams continued their dance. The black hole seemed to jump and twist like a living thing – control over the black hole, it seemed, was not as simple as she had assumed – but slowly she wrestled it into submission. The Killers, she realised slowly, operated on an entirely different principle. They drained the power from the black hole, used that power to control the black hole, and then funnelled most of the power back into the black hole. The black hole, she reflected, was quite literally paying for its own enslavement.
“Its lucky for them that you’re not intelligent,” she muttered to herself as she continued to probe the black hole. A group of rather weird Technical Faction researchers had once speculated that intelligent life might develop within a black hole, or that one of the races trying to hide from the Killers might hide inside a black hole. Their theories had provided Paula with some minor amusement, but she hadn’t believed them, even before she’d confirmed her theory that the Killers used black holes for power. An intelligent black hole would probably have fought back against such abuse. “If I do this…”
Another hour passed before she finally felt that she had gained complete control over the gravity field. It seemed to spin in and out from the event horizon – she had expected a simple field, but her gravity beams seemed to be reshaping it somehow – yet she had it jumping at her command. It hadn’t been easy, but when she sat back, she knew that she had duplicated one of the Killer tricks. She, too, had enslaved a black hole.
“You need to rest now,” Chris said, rubbing the back of her neck. Under other circumstances, she would have relaxed into his touch and seen where events led, but now she could barely keep her eyes open. Her implants were flickering up all kinds of different alarms. She needed food, drink, a shower and bed, perhaps not in that order. “Come on.”
She was barely aware of his strong arms picking her up and she had blacked out completely by the time he lowered her into her bed. Her implants had been configured to put her deep under for at least eight hours, yet somehow she still dreamed, tormented by visions of a demonic black hole screaming under her touch. The thought snapped her out of her rest far too early and she felt her head spinning before she pushed herself back down into the bed and fell asleep again. Chris didn’t wake her at the end of the eight hours and it was nearly twelve before she pulled herself awake again. The MassMind, at least, never slept.
“The black hole is still under your control,” it said, when she asked. “We have not attempted to do anything beyond studying the exact nature of our control and how we can amplify and simplify the process.”
Paula nodded, midway through stripping off her tunic and stepping into the shower. “And have you deduced anything new?”
“We have altered the control routines slightly,” the MassMind confirmed, as the hot water began to wash away the dirt and grime she had somehow acuminated on her figure. “Your original models actually used too much power in the later stages and we have compensated for that. There are – as yet – no requirements for further modification.”
“Well, thank heaven for that,” Paula said, tartly. The water felt so good. The sonic massage felt even better. It slowly worked all of the kinks out of her body. “I was starting to wonder if I was still needed.”
The MassMind, perhaps wisely, didn’t bother to answer. Paula smiled to herself and leaned back in the shower, allowing the water to run over every inch of her body, before she stepped out. The force curtain between the shower and the remainder of the room tingled over her breasts as it wiped away all the water, forcing an involuntary gasp from her lips, leaving her perfectly dry. She pulled out a new tunic, provided by the tiny civilian-grade fabricator in the room, and dressed quickly. Her night had been rough, but at least she felt human again.
”Thank you for putting me to bed,” she said, as she entered the control room and saw Chris on the other side, reading a datapad with a darkening face. It could have been anything from a military manual to a pornographic video, but she guessed from his expression that it was news from the war fronts. Mankind and the Killers were trying their best to exterminate each other. “I hope you didn’t touch anything.”
“I’m not that dumb,” Chris said, with a wink. Paula had to smile at his mock-offended expression. He really was remarkably attractive. “I just sat here and waited for you.”
“And didn’t take any sleep yourself,” Paula concluded. She shook her head. “You ought to go sleep now.”
She grinned at his protests and sat down again in front of the display. Shiva looked as it had always looked on the visual display, but on the gravimetric display it looked very different, a massive source of power at her disposal. She checked through the MassMind-produced alterations quickly and smiled inwardly; the MassMind had improved the whole system, even though it had barely touched the original algorithms she had created. It had anticipated her plan and provided her with routines that would allow her to reach out to the entire system with powerful gravity beams…or much further, given enough power.
“Simulate something for me,” she said, knowing that the MassMind would hear. “What would happen if I were to use the gravity beams to pull the other planets into the black hole?”
The MassMind had clearly been thinking about it itself, for there was no delay in throwing up the image in front of her. The black hole would not have any problems in consuming the two planets, even though it would take ours to pull them back into the sinkhole and get them set on course towards the event horizon, but it would throw out more radiation, disrupting her control. It would have to be tried, later, but for the moment she intended to leave it. She had a more important task.
“All right,” she said, slowly. “Show me the data on the Killer black holes.”
It expanded out in front of her and she smiled. “Let’s start vibrating, shall we?” She asked. “I want to start a low-level vibration…now.”
She had worked it out carefully and she knew that this was the tensest moment of all. The Killers could hardly fail to notice if she attempted to form a wormhole between Shiva and one of their black holes, but if she was careful…she might be able to slip a tap into the Killer communications network. The combination of her planning and the MassMind-powered computing systems would allow her to read their communications traffic, although she doubted she’d understand it at first. Chris had once told her that most humans didn’t bother with encrypting messages sent through the quantum entanglement network – after all, they knew that it was impossible to intercept the messages – but the Killers were alien. The MassMind, for all of its power, might not be able to untangle their messages for years to come.
“The vibration is underway,” the MassMind confirmed. The display updated rapidly, showing the gravity field twisting and bending out of shape. It wasn't crossing thousands of light years so much as it was bringing the light years to Shiva. “We are attempting to synchronise with the Killer black hole network.”
Paula nodded. One thing was fairly clear from both theory and practice; the Killers probably used one network of black holes, all operating on the same vibration frequency. They could – probably – have several other networks operating at the same time, assuming that they had different political factions as well, but their main network should all use the same frequency. It was the only thing that would keep the network together. Logically, the most common observed vibration pattern should be their common network…
“Let me know the moment you get a response,” Paula ordered, tersely. She had no idea what form that response would take. In theory, the Killers might simply create a wormhole and dispatch a starship through the bridge to slap the imprudent humans down. Part of her hoped they would try just that. Her control over the black hole was far from perfect, but she was sure that she could crush any unwanted visitor if it came out of Shiva. “Keep the emergency program on standby.”
“Of course,” the MassMind reassured her. “We will trigger it the second a suitable wormhole forms and destroy any new starship.”
The black hole spun below her, showing no sign of the titanic struggle being waged for control. Even with the MassMind to help, the entire process was still delicate. She was almost tempted to leave the MassMind to work on it and move to another part of the project, but that would have been too much like giving up. An hour passed slowly as they worked on controlling the system…and finally, they felt a response. It was nothing more than a simple acknowledgement – or so the MassMind believed – but it was there.
And the entire Killer network opened up before her.
Chapter Forty-One
“Twenty-seven new star systems attacked, fifty-nine billion dead, nine hundred and seventeen starships destroyed…”
Tabitha Cunningham listened, as dispassionately as she could, to the liturgy of disaster. The Killer blitzkrieg was slowly tearing the Community apart. Only the sheer size of the Community – and the relative insignificance of most of the targets – had prevented the Community from disintegrating by now, although millions more were joining the Exodus and fleeing the galaxy entirely. Tabitha, who had been there at the start and watched as humanity struggled to survive after Earth, had the uneasy feeling that she was in at the death – humanity’s death.
“We have destroyed twelve of their star systems so far,” Brent continued. The Admiral’s face was dark and mottled after his brief exposure to vacuum, but the nanotechnology running through his veins would suffice to deal with that, soon enough. Humanity vanity would prevent him from keeping his scars. “The bombardment of various gas giants by asteroids and comets may have had some effect, but we do not know for sure. They certainly must have some way of dealing with such impacts; gas giants are magnets for asteroid bombardment. We have also taken out” – such a cold bloodless term – “nineteen of the starships.”
His face darkened. “The war may be on the verge of being lost,” he admitted, and Tabitha could hear the bitterness in his voice. Even with the new weapons evening the odds, humanity was still losing the war. It was, she’d been told, a matter of relative damage. A Killer starship could soak up hundreds of implosion bolts, energy torpedoes and particle beam directed energy weapons and keep going. A single hit would destroy a human starship utterly. “Even if we continue to destroy their star systems, we may lose even before they begin their grand plan to destroy the galaxy.”
The War Council looked…defeated, Tabitha decided. The President was probably already thinking about a general evacuation. Father Sigmund was thinking about his flock and how best they could survive the next few years. Rupert was missing, of course, somewhere on a Killer starship. Jayne was silently cursing the war and the Rockrats involvement in the fighting. And Brent was watching the Defence Force, the force he had struggled to build up into a fleet that could actually challenge the Killers, being taken apart, piece by piece. They were already thinking in terms of defeat. They needed hope.
“The MassMind has completed its analysis of the data recovered from the Killer starships,” Tabitha said, projecting herself forward into the chamber. They had to listen to her. “We are now in a position to tell you how the war began…and how it can be ended.”
They latched onto her words like a drowning man would clutch at a rope. She had their full attention. Now all she had to do was keep it. “The exact details are rather hard to discuss in words,” she continued, knowing that it would concentrate a few minds, “so we have prepared a perceptual reality to educate you. With your permission…?”
“Run it,” Patti ordered, curtly.
“Of course,” Tabitha agreed. “Welcome to the universe as the Killers see it.”
The massive crystal-clear image of the galaxy, rotating grandly at the heart of the simulated chamber, vanished, to be replaced by a murky green-yellow atmosphere that seemed to form at the edge of their fingertips. It wasn't a completely perfect simulation, Tabitha knew; the pressures at their level would kill an unprotected him, yet it was the simplest way of getting the message across. They had to understand what they were actually dealing with, even at the price of some discomfort…
And they would definitely feel discomfort. None of them would have seen mists before as they existed on planets, but they’d all read legends of what could be lurking in mists and shivered as they blew closer. Strange shapes could barely be made out in the distance, each one a hint of something else, something larger. It was largely imagination, Tabitha knew, yet even she was affected Anything could be lurking in those mists, anything at all.
“The heart of an unknown gas giant,” she said, dramatically. It was actually a layer a few kilometres below the surface, but she had always liked a touch of drama. “The pressures here would kill any of us who ventured there, and yet there is life. Can you see it?”
The MassMind obligingly pointed it out for those who couldn’t. A chemical soup floated on the layer of gas, spreading out slowly to cover the entire gas giant. It had probably formed from the same material that had given birth to life on Earth, something that had surprised Tabitha when she had first heard of it. It galled her to think that there might be any biological link, no matter how vague, between humanity and its deadly enemies. The other races, the ones the Killers had destroyed, had been surprisingly humanoid, but the Killers certainly didn’t share that with them. As they watched, millions of years slowly passed and cells began to form.
“We’re watching a sped-up version,” Tabitha said, as the cells continued to grow and multiply in their soup. “It will be many millions of years before intelligence begins to form.”
The development of life expanded rapidly once the first threshold had been passed. Newer and more complex cells began to form, bonding together into strange creatures, swimming through the chemical soup even as they used it as a source of food and energy. Powerful discharges of lightning seemed to flicker through the atmosphere, assisting mutation and the rapid development
of viable mutations. The creatures floating within the gas giant weren’t like humans in one very important respect; they were composed of cells that divided and reformed at will, reproducing by fission rather than sexual congress. The very concept of sex was alien to them, as was the concept of strict barriers between different species. They were all composed of the same life. The more successful creatures became hybrids between the different varieties of creatures. Unlike Earth, life was permanently in flux. A race that seemed viable one year might not continue to survive the next, except they did. Death was rare among the creatures. They enjoyed a permanence of existence that had always been denied humans. They shared information by encoding it in their cells and passing it on to their successors, making them part of the previous life form. Their evolution was slow, slower than humanity’s, but they never regressed. What one knew, eventually the others knew as well.
Who knew when intelligence finally formed, creating a new form of life? They might not have known themselves when they crossed the threshold from animal to sentient life. They had no struggles for resources, or particular hatreds as humanity had developed; they worked together in perfect harmony with their world. Tabitha, watching, found that ironic. The Elders of New Hope had intended to create an Eden where humans could live in harmony with the land – a much-overrated concept – and the Killers, the creatures they had demonised, had achieved a far more effective harmony with their own worlds. Their mindset was very different to humanity’s mindset. With an infinity of food and resources, cooperation rather than conflict became the primary force for their evolution.
Storming Heaven Page 40